Fresh C's Guide to HalfWay Decent Fan Fiction
by Fresh C
Summary: For all of you struggling authors out there. This one's for you. I'll share with you my infinite wisdom and secret techniques. It is a gift... and a curse.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: **By writing this guide I am basically admitting to being a pompous jerk that believes his stories are better than others and that he can successfully instruct others of the proper methods needed to write a decent story. In short, in writing this guide I am spitting in my readers' eyes and saying that I'm better than them.

**Disclaimer: **By writing this guide I am not admitting to being a pompous jerk. I don't think my stories are better than other writers' stories and there is no guarantee that I can instruct others on the proper methods that are required to write a decent story. I'm sorry if I spit in your eye and I don't mean to give the impression that I'm better than you.

**Disclaimer 2.0: **I can't help you with spelling and grammar. Mine sucks too. That's why spell check is my best friend… who I just don't seem to hang out with enough.

**Fresh C's Guide to Half-Way Decent Fan Fiction**

**By**

Fresh C

**I. Intro**

Hello. Fresh C here. You may know me as the writer of such fan fics as "Breathing Room" and "When she smiles". If you don't know me, then you better ask somebody!

As you can probably tell from the title, this is an informal guide to writing fan fiction. This guide will be Evangelion based and follow no set format (at least not intentionally). The guide is designed to help horrible-to-bad writers become mediocre-to-almost good writers. I plan to do this by exploring the process of writing fan fiction and offering alternatives to bad writing methods. Also I just plan on trying to make you laugh. Chances are I will fail at both goals miserably.

So let's cut to the chase. Most likely you're here for one of three reasons.

1) You want to learn how to become a better author or how to write in general.

2) You think this will be funny or entertaining.

3) I've fooled you into believing I'm a good author and you want to read my stuff.

Well if you're here for reason number one or two you've come to the right place. If you're here for reason three than you have my pity and sincerest sympathies. But for all intents and purposes I will assume that everyone one reading this is truly interested in what I have to say about improving your writing skills. If all goes well, by the end of this you'll be able to write just as crappily as I do.

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**II. Why We Write Fan Fiction**

Okay, let me paint a picture for you. You're a bit of a geek, nerd, closet weirdo or whatever and you like Anime or Manga. It's not your fault. It's probably genetic or something. The point is, somehow or another you stumbled across Evangelion and you made the sad mistake of getting yourself hooked. There's no need to explain yourself. You're among friends here.

So you watch the show and you think, "man this show is good." You look at the depth of character, the bizarre twisting plots, and the underlying emotion flooding throughout the show and you're mesmerized. You start comparing your own life to that of Shinji, Asuka, and Rei and you find enough similarities for you to think, "they're just like me." Then, somehow or another you wound up on this site and chances are you read someone else's story. And you know what? You liked that story. You thought it was cool that other people are exploring the series beyond what Hideki Anno did.

And then you make your first and greatest mistake. You look back at the brilliance that is Evangelion and you think four damning words: "I can do that."

Lesson number one: _You Cannot Do That!_

You are not and will never be Hideki Anno. Sorry, kid it's the truth. I'm not saying that you can't be as creative or brilliant as that talented man. What I'm saying is that you will never be able to do what he did. It's possible that you may one day create an even more popular and controversial anime (highly unlikely, but still possible). But you will never be him. I know that I've just destroyed your life dream, but stop crying and get over it! Are you better now? Good.

Now that you've got that stupid idea out of your head, you are ready to begin the writing process.

**III a. Developing a Plot (not stealing bad ones)**

In my experience, inspiration for writing has come from one of two sources: My everyday life and the works of others.

Let me repeat myself.

In my experience, inspiration for writing has come from one of two sources: **My everyday life** and the works of others.

I repeated myself because I know that you only heard one part of that. You heard that my inspiration comes from the works of others, didn't you. Well, now that you know where the best inspiration comes from, why are you even reading this anymore? Go out and read actual stories! What's that you say? You've already read a bunch of Evangelion fics? That's excellent! Then why don't you start writing, you genius you?

So let's see what's out there. Hmmm… why don't you write a romance story! Everyone loves romance right? Of course they do! So now that you've got that decided, let's figure out who the characters will be.

Well, we've got to have Shinji in there of course… I mean what type of story would it be without Shinji? And then we'll need a leading female character. But which to choose? Not Misato, or Ritsuko… they're too old for good old Shin-chan…. Yeah let's call him Shin-chan for some unknown reason. So that leaves Maya, Asuka, Rei, and a possible original character. Ohhh! And the original character could look just like you if you're a girl… or maybe you're dream girl if you're a guy. She'll be supper cool and a perfect match for Shinji. And the original character will be the 7th child! (are they up to seven yet?… who cares… we'll just fill in any number of pilots that we missed). And maybe she'll have supper angel powers or something and live in Misato's apartment and be supper mysterious and lack any realistic character traits and personality depth and…

No. You can't do that. Self-inserts suck. At least that's what it says in all those reviews for all those stories that you read. So maybe you'll just pick Maya… she's so Kawai! But then again, if you did that you might actually have to have a plot to go along with our story… can't let that happen. So instead why don't we just pick Asuka or Rei? But they're both so cute and perfect for Shinji. It's like fire and ice, yin and yang, peanut butter and jelly, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong… well you get the point. How could anyone choose between them?

But wait! That's it! No one could choose between them! Especially not Shinji! So the whole story could be about how the two girls try to win Shinji's heart. And along the way they can grow and change their personalities… instantly! Without any real reason! It'll be so sweet. Asuka can learn how to be nice to Shinji! And Rei will learn how to express her feelings! Maybe Rei will ask Misato for advice or something… yeah, that's never been done before.

I bet you can see it now. "Misato, why does my stomach do back flips every time I see pilot Ikari and why do I feel discomfort when he is near the second child?"

"Rei, you're in love! This is what I've always wanted for you, even though we've hardly interacted throughout the entire series. Go show/tell Shin-chan how you feel!"

And then she'll do something crazy like try to have sex with Shinji in the men's locker room, but Shinji won't bite because he has no penis and he's a really nice guy who doesn't want to take advantage of her.

But let's not count Asuka out. She'll be really nice to Shinji

She'll say, "Baka Shinji! Don't you know that I'm only mean to you because I love you!"

And then Shinji will be all like "I love you too, but I love Ayanami as well! I'm so confused and I'm so screwed up!"

"You have to choose between us!" they'll say and they'll give him time to choose, all the while subtly influencing his decision by practically raping him when the other girl isn't around. And then Shinji in his confusion will seek out a parental type figure to confide in… maybe Kaji… yeah that's never been done before either. And then Shinji will still be confused. And he'll have a hard time choosing. And the story will never end!

And that's great because as long as the story doesn't end, you'll keep getting reviews. Look at them rolling in. 300 reviews and counting! Never mind that the story is 157 chapters long with about 500 words per chapter.

So Congradu-frickin-lations! You've just murdered Fan Fiction!

For those of you who are less adept at sarcasm, I wrote all of this to make a point. Writing a story from inspiration based completely off of other stories on this site will produce a story **just like every other story you've ever read! **This is a **BAD THING!**

If you want an original story you are going to have to use ideas that don't belong to other people. Yeah, it's tragic, but it's the sad reality of the world of fan fiction. So the real question is, how do lazy uncreative people like us come up with great original ideas? The answer is simple: Pay attention to life.

Now I know what you're thinking. Your life is pretty boring, right? I mean if it wasn't boring then you wouldn't be here reading stories about giant robots and the like. (Yeah I know that's a stupid/offensive assumption). But every life, no matter how boring it is, has meaning.

For example, let's say you're in math class or something and this kid always seems to get the answers right, when you get them wrong. This wouldn't bother you except for the fact that you studied twenty-five hours a day for that class and you know for a fact that the other kid hasn't studied a lick in his life. That's frustrating isn't it… almost as frustrating as having the second highest sync ratio when you've been training for Eva all your life… hmmm.

See how I did that? I related an everyday instance to one that occurs in the Evangelion world. It may seem hard, but really it's not. You just have to look at these things backwards. When you watch Evangelion (or any other thought provoking story) you find yourself relating to situations that occur within the story. You think, sometimes I feel like everyone is using me too… just like Shinji. And you know why the story makes you feel that way? Because the person who wrote it felt that way and they created it into a story.

You see, the basis of writing fiction is to take your feelings from real life and translate them into a fictional setting. There are many ways to do this (such as exaggeration, adding elements to the initial inspiration, and examining similar situations), which I will discuss later in a section about style. For now it's important for you to know that you can use your own ideas to write. Don't depend upon the haggard plots of others.

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**III b. Bad/Overused Plots and How to Recognize that You're using them**

Plots are the substances of stories. You can have great characters, but if you put them into crappy situations… well you get a crappy story. And there are lots of very crappy stories on this site and everywhere else for that matter. However, I have a few rules that may help you to avoid using bad or already used plots.

First of all, you must avoid the following plots, if at all possible:

Shinji grows a spine 

-When you write a story with this plot you are essentially saying, "What if Shinji wasn't Shinji?" But the whole series of Evangelion was based upon Shinji being who he was, so if you change that you're basically turning Evangelion (a story about the human condition delivered through the medium of giant robot anime) into Gundum (a story about giant robot fights with a background story of human interaction). While I myself like Gundam, I think it's nowhere near as deep and expressive as Evangelion

-These stories wouldn't be so bad if the authors of these stories didn't take away everything flawed and human about Shinji and replacing it with an odd "screw you" macho personality complete with conflicting heroic/selfish motivations and horrible attempts at witty dialogue. In short, most authors turn Shinji into Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Eraser".

-The reason for Shinji's change is often stupid/unlikely and the timeframe in which these changes occur is often much too short. The change itself is too complete. People do not become completely different people. They change subtly and at core are generally the same, no matter what happens to them… usually.

Asuka gains compassion 

-No, for almost all the same reasons listed above.

-A part of me dies every time I read a story like this.

Rei discovers emotion 

-See reasons for not writing "Shinji Grows a Spine" stories

-Rei plus strongly portrayed emotions equals bad plot

-If I read the question "Is this emotion that I feel towards Pilot Ikari love?" one more time, I am likely to lose my sanity and become one of those psycho serial-killers who only targets Fan Fiction writers. I'm that close to the edge… please don't push me over.

I'm hesitant to say this at all, but there are situations in which these overused plot devices can be used. As long as these plots are used in tangent with a stronger, more unique plot, then it is possible that they can be pulled off nicely. But please… please be subtle about it. Not just for me, but for everyone. You'll be making the world a better place.

But never… ever… use the line: "I mustn't run away". I'm not going to say that I'll slit your throat… but there's a strong possibility that the sharp end of my knife might accidentally fall across your esophagus. (read: es–oh-fag-us)

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**IV. Building Plot Around Characters, Not Characters Around Plot**

Your plot has to fit the characters, not the other way around. This is Fan Fiction. We already know how the characters should act. Therefore when you put the characters into situations that require them to act in ways that they would not act under any circumstances, your readers will know and they won't stop giving you crap about it. You don't want your readers crap… it stinks almost as much as yours.

So here's the deal. You really have to have at least a general idea of how the characters act. Asuka is not going to go around smiling warmly at strangers and sprinkling flower pedals. Shinji will not start to talk non-stop and hug people randomly and say "you're my best friend!" Rei will not start calling people female dogs, cursing like a sailor, or being overly flirtatiuous/ bubbly/ whatever the heck you people like to do to ruin her character (I've lost count of the different ways… that would make a great humor fic though. "A Thousand Ways to Ruin Rei". It'd be like a series of one-shots, where each chapter centers around one of the many ways authors ruin the character of Ayanami Rei… you can take the idea if you like).

So avoid this problem, if at all possible. Do your research. Watch the series. Read other fan fics. Get a feeling for the characters before you even begin to write your story. You have a diverse cast at your disposal. If you find an idea for a story isn't going to work centered around a Shinji/Rei friendship, then maybe you'll find that the story will fit with one of the more minor characters. You could have a Hikari/Kensuke friendship story. Why the heck not? No one does that, so it'd be pretty original. And that's what pulls in the new readers. Not talent, but originality… and talent (but you can pretend like I didn't say that).

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**V. Where to Start**

I'm going to make quite a few assumptions here and it's possible that none of them are true. I'm going to assume that you now have a decent plot lined up, you have a pretty good idea of how you want your characters to act, and you have at least one GOOD scene in your head. You might want to have an outline of events that you want to happen long-term in the story, or maybe just in the first chapter. I don't do this, but I'm supper-duper sweet and can get away with it… and yes you can quote me on that.

The most important thing to remember when starting a story is not to waste time on pointless introductions. You want to grab your readers' attention right away, before they get bored and go read something else. So you want to begin your story, right in the action. Do not, I repeat, do not hold back. If at all possible have a snappy first line. Possibly some strong dialogue, or just a very good narrative set up.

And now for stupid examples that no one should use that should give you somewhat of an idea what I'm talking about.

This was definitely not good. Although Shinji had never shot himself in the foot before, he was pretty confident that there shouldn't be **that** much blood. It was all over.

"_You touch me with that again and I'll break it off" cried Asuka ruefully. Shinji quickly removed his hand from his roommates shoulder. He had only meant to comfort her. It wasn't his fault that she was being shipped back to Germany…_

_There was no longer any anger in Toji's eyes. His every thought was fueled by fear. He hadn't meant for things to go so far with the new kid. He only wanted to hurt him a little, to scare him. But now he was the one who was scared. The crowd watching the fight drew closer to get a better look and then abruptly they all drew away. One brave soul bent down to examine the kid. It was Kensuke. Toji's heart dropped at his next words._

"_I think he's dead."_

"_I'm drunk and lonely!" proclaimed Misato. Shinji gulped._

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**VI. Style (and various other things that I'm randomly throwing in this category)**

I believe that there are four major factors that contribute to your style. That of course means that this is not necessarily true. But for the sake of this guide we'll assume it is.

These factors are sentence structure, dialogue, description, and theme. Each of these factors will help determine your individual "sound" and how you come across to your readers.

Sentence structure is probably the most important thing in writing… maybe. I'm not really sure… but it sounds good to say. The way your sentences are worded determines your readability. There is no fixed method to improve your sentence structure because there is no fixed requirement for what a good sentence structure is supposed to be. The best way to help develop good sentence structure is through the observation of other writings (preferably published works… not James Patterson… he's okay I guess… but whatever). But if you're not sure if your own style sucks or not, here's a test. Read what you've written out loud. If it sounds awkward like a three year old wrote it, chances are it is awkward and you are a three year old.

Dialogue is tough, but not that tough. It may be hard for you to think of the perfect most memorable lines for your characters to say, but try not to hurt yourself while doing so. The key to my dialogue (which may not be the key to yours) is that I write dialogue almost exactly as I speak. I know that _I'm _real therefore in theory, the dialogue that I use should sound real. It's not wise to go searching for weird ways to say things, that feel unnatural to you. Ultimately your characters can never have better dialogue than you do because _you_ are writing their dialogue. If you have a horrible vocabulary, so will your characters. So there's no way that your character will say "Good evening sweetheart, what eloquent weather we're having on this delightful winter's day" when you say "Hello Honey! It's _purtty_ outside!"

Description is quite important to a story. You can have all the fancy dialogue you want, but if you don't actually describe the setting and what the characters are doing, then it's pretty much useless. You want your readers to be able to visualize the scenes as they read them off of the screen. The key to doing this, is to visualize the scenes yourself. Close your eyes as you think about the situation that you are putting your characters into. What did you see? Write it down. It's that simple… but not really. You can add details as you go along. Like if your characters sit down sometime during a conversation, it might be a good idea to mention that there's a couch. If your characters go outside, it might be smart to say they put on their shoes. Logic plays a big part in description. You need to make sure the environment you describe contains everything that your characters are going to need in that scene. But beware of the dangers of over describing. Your readers do not need to know every single thing that is in Misato's messy room. Nor do they need to know every time your character shifts slightly in position or idly scratches their nose (not that these are bad details, but when done to excess…). For the most part your readers will fill in the wholes in your story with their own imaginations. So don't go overboard. Try to balance your dialogue and your descriptions, never giving away too much. Always keep your readers wondering where you're going to take things. NEVER BE PREDICTABLE. It's often better to tell too little than to tell too much… but don't quote me on that when your readers leave reviews saying "I don't get what's going on… wtf?"

Always have a theme. Do not write a story with no message at all because such a story means nothing. Even if you wrote a wonderfully worded and excellently descriptive tale about a rock that didn't move… you just wrote a story about a rock that didn't move. It sucks. No one wants to hear about a rock that doesn't move. That example is extreme though. The same thing applies to stories that almost exactly mirror other stories. NEVER BE PREDICTABLE. If people know where you're going to take things, then there is no point in anyone reading your story. Throw your readers off balance. If there is something that fits perfectly and is the logical step to take in writing the story, then don't do it! Find something else that no one would have ever expected. Now I'm not saying your story has to be completely original in every aspect. That's nearly impossible. But what I am saying is that you need to pick and choose your battles. Don't ever leave enough hints to let your readers completely get into your mind.

I got off track there, but what I said was important. But what's also important is what I was supposed to be talking about: theme. You must have a reason for writing your story. There must either be an underlying moral/belief (which you will not explicitly state, under any circumstances or terrible things might happen to you) or an examination of emotions brought about by situations. You have to tell your reader something they don't know or remind them of something they may have forgotten and it has to be something important. In short, you have to put _yourself_ into the story. Sure people like a good plot, with lots of happenings and adventures, and sure they like it wrapped up in a nicely formatted story box with a pretty prose bow. But what people are really looking for, what they really want out of a story, is to see a piece of you in it. Why else do people always ask questions like "How did you come up with this idea?" when they read good stories. People are inherently social creatures, even when they're just reading stories of other people on the other end of the world. Deep down inside, your readers truly want to know you, who you are and what you're all about. But only if you let them. More on this in section VIII.

If you can learn your strengths and weaknesses in these aspects of writing then you will be well on your way to improvement.

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**VII. Presentation (or how to get someone to actually read your crap)**

Your presentation is the only thing (aside from a solid reputation… which I'm assuming you don't have if you're looking for advice from me) that will get anyone to read your story. You can write the greatest masterpiece the world has ever seen, but if you have a crappy title and an even crappier summary, no one will bother to give it a second glance. In this section I'll provide you with a few good tips for creating titles and writing summaries.

So first of all let's look at titles. A good title is the first thing that is going to pull a prospective reader in. If you put up a cool title like "Faith Delivered" then people are likely to at least read your summary (Disclaimer: "Faith Delivered" is not necessarily a cool title). But if you put something lame up like "Shinji Gets Help in Life and Learns to Find Faith In Others" then everyone is going to assume you're an idiot and if they decide to read your story it will only be because they're really really bored and want to laugh at you.

What's the difference between the two titles? They both accurately describe the same story. I'll tell you the difference. One title is an actual title and the other is just a bad summary. Why do I call the other one a bad summary and not a title? Well there are many reasons for that, but the most important is that the second title actually tells what is happening in the story. This is a fatal mistake that some writers make. If you tell your readers exactly what to expect from your story then they no longer have a reason to read it. I mean people read stories in order to find out what happens.

But this is not the only thing wrong with the second title. It's much too long to be taken seriously. If your title contains 5 or more words (and doesn't contain a subtitle) then it's much too long. In fact, 5 words is probably being generous. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but only when you have a really frickin' sweet title on your hands (in which case you probably don't need me to tell you that your title is really frickin' sweet).

Another problem with the second title is that it uses the name of a character in it. That is an amateur move if I ever heard of one. Unless it's a humor fic (in which case you can participate in idiocy to your hearts content) people will know that you "Really couldn't think of a good title".

So the next important question to ask is what makes the first title so great? Well, as stated in the disclaimer it's not _that_ great but it's quite passable. The reasons that it's quite passable are the same reasons that the other one wasn't. It's very short and too the point. Gives the reader an idea of what type of story they're reading without telling them the actual plot. And it's slightly philosophical sounding. Remember, most readers want to think they're reading something that makes them seem smart. So if you can give them a title that sounds "deep" they'll eat it up. That is, they'll eat it up as long as the story itself isn't crap. Don't get me wrong though. Being philosophical is good, but it's nowhere near as important as being brief. Because no one will read a story entitled "Existential Wanderings and the Melancholy of Psychological Misgivings" (you're free to use this title if you'd like).

Now onto summaries. There is one rule to summaries that is of the utmost importance. Tell them what they want to hear! It doesn't matter if your story is about something completely different, just tell them the sweet sweet lies that they love. Chances are, by the time they're done reading the story you've written they'll have completely forgotten about the summary that brought them there in the first place.

So what do they want to hear? Who knows? I sure don't. I just assume that people who read these stories are looking for the exact same thing I'm looking for in a story. So I write summaries that I know would interest me if I were to read them. And before I forget, it's important to mention that "I'm sorry, I really suck at summaries" or "Better summary on the inside" is not what anyone wants to hear. These are all lame cop-outs and even the person writing them knows this. So please don't pronounce your story DOA with either one of these phrases in them.

Another thing to remember when dealing with summaries is that you should never, ever tell what's going to happen in your story within the summary. Yes, I know… that's what summaries are for. But avoid it at all costs. Just give ideas and impressions of what your story is like and maybe (if you have to) describe the basic idea of the story. Like if the story is about how Asuka's lonely on the holidays it's sorta okay to write something like "During the holiday season, Asuka finds out that there's no joy in solitude". But there are much better ways to write a summary than this.

Like say your title was "Lonely Christmas" (not that this is a good title). Then your title already explains quite a bit of what the story is about. You don't need to re-explain what the title has already said. So instead you can write something more generic like "Asuka finds that there's no joy in solitude". But you can probably make it much better than this. Remember, the more unspecific your summary is, the more likely that people are going to want to find out what you're really trying to get at. So if you could even find a way not use anyone's name, there's an added mystery element (although this is not necessary). Just like titles, when it comes to summaries, less is more.

Oh and as a side note, it's good to have a nice penname as well. Don't go calling yourself "The Neo Nazi Terrorist Who Will Pillage and Rape All Your Mothers". People won't go for that. Think of something really cool… no cool's the wrong word… maybe sweet… no that's not it either… Fresh! Think of a penname that's really fresh! That'll get'em all reading your fics like addicts.

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**VIII. Your Writer Persona (or How to Trick Your Readers into Liking You)**

I'll let you in on a little secret of mine. One that I personally contribute to a lot of my successes (yeah yeah… I know I don't have any successes… get off my back). If your readers like you as a person, they're ten times more likely to enjoy your stories. Why is that? Well I'm glad you asked.

You see, your readers are stupid. Well, I suppose that's a little unfair. It's better to say that your readers are human. And as humans they cannot and will not judge your story based purely on your talent in writing. This is because they possess these pesky things called "emotions". So if you can get your readers to like you then they're quote unquote "emotions" will cause them to want to read your stories more and possibly be more lenient in their interpretation of your skill. While the latter is not quite desirable (unless you want to receive false praise) it is in your best interest to have as many people read your story as possible… if that's your interest.

So, what can you do to get a bunch of people who don't really know anything about you to like you? Well, it's really quite simple: be nice and show some interest. If someone reads your story and is kind enough to leave a review, then it's only fair that you respond back to their review (given that they've said something other than "tht waz friggen sweat! Kensuke is a tard! U roxz so hard! Update or I killz U!"). And it's really magical what a little thing like responding to a review and just saying "thank you for reading" truly does. Because people (with their crazy raging emotions) like to be appreciated. So if you so them your appreciation, they're more likely to come back and read your next chapter, or your next story because they know that you'll appreciate it. And I know this might appear to be a crazy suggestion, but if you go and read _their_ story they'll probably appreciate your appreciation even more. You don't have to act phony or anything (chances are people will notice if you do). You just have to be yourself. It sounds sort of stupid and simplistic, but it's really true. And you, also being a stupid human with deranged "emotions" might just find that you also end up liking the people who are reviewing your story. And maybe the two of you might form something that us strange humans like to call a "friendship". If that's not what fan fiction is about then I don't know what it is.

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**IX. Closure/New Beginnings!**

Well you did it… you read all of that crap I wrote. Honestly I didn't try too hard to make this into a good guide and that is because I'm a slacker. But the other reason I didn't work hard on this is to prove a point (yeah that's is a blatant lie). I write stories for fun. I enjoy myself. If I were to work very hard and get all the facts straight and make this guide perfect, I'm sure it would still have been fun, but not nearly as much. It's important to remember that I cannot teach you how to write better. I can only tell you what works for me and what I think might work for you.

But pretend with me for a moment that you have learned some useful bit of information from my senseless rambling. Now it is your responsibility to take what you've learned and put it to good use. Remember, everyone sucks in the beginning (except really good people who I'm jealous of). The more you work at this the better you get. As you write stories and get honest constructive advice from others you'll grow and improve as a writer and as a person!

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**AN: **TheWhiteMonk you pose a very good point my friend. It's important not to assume that all stories with plots that have a tendency to be bad are infact bad. If a story is written well, then it's written well. And AU stories don't have to have original characterization for the cast. But I also think that anyone who really would need to use the guide probably shouldn't write a story like that. Because chances are they'll blow it. And honestly I haven't read a GOOD AU story (at least not one that goes so far as to make Shinji confident, or star him as batman, or anything of the sort. I have read some good ones where the whole setting is different, but the characters are essentially the same). Still I'm not stupid enough to assume that there aren't good one's out there.

So yes, I agree with you. It's not impossible to write a radically AU Evangelion story that is good, but it's also not probable to believe that a beginner or struggling writer will be able to pull it off. And for the most part they are the only ones who want to attempt it.

Well that's it. Pretty bad huh? Can't you just imagine me smiling cheesy-like into a camera and giving it a thumbs up as I say the last line? I bet you can now. Hope you all liked it and whatnot and if you ever have trouble in your writings don't hesitate to ask for help. (don't necessarily ask me though… just kidding). Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together.

**Disclaimer 2.5: **The line "Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together" Is from the Red Green show. It's not mine… but I want it!


	2. By The Way

**By The Way**

**I. Opps…**

Yeah, I forgot a few important things. I'll try to make it brief though, since you've listened to my rambling long enough. Just don't expect all the funny of the first chapter. I'm not that dedicated.

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**II. Sentence Structure (The deleted scenes)**

So it seems that I DO have something to tell you about sentence structure. But don't get your hopes up. It's not much. There's one thing really that you should remember when it comes to sentence structure and that is simply this: Switch It Up!

If at all possible, never start two consecutive sentences with the same word. If that do that your language will sound dull and unoriginal. If you continue to repeat yourself and use the same sentence structure no one will want to read your story. If you keep doing that, reading it will seem like a chore.

I think this especially goes for the words "I" and "The". I believe that using "I" at the beginning of each sentence is the textual equivalent to worshiping the devil. I know this sounds extreme, but it's true. The thing is that this all goes back to what I said in the first chapter about being predictable. The readers of your story will quickly loose interest if you don't give them something new everyone once in a while. The lack of reviews you receive should not be surprising if you fail to do so.

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**III. Love The Things You Write About**

You gotta care about your subject matter. There's no getting around it. If you care about what you're writing then you'll write what you feel and you'll put more effort into it without feeling that you've put more effort into it at all. In my experience, I've found it ten times easier to write about a topic I loved than to force my way through topics that are bland to me.

So if you're writing a story and you come across an unimportant part that you just wanted to put in to fill space, don't write it. Filling space is bad. People will see right through it. If you really need to lengthen something, then expand upon what you've already written (as long as this feels natural) or delve into some material that you were saving for the next chapter. When all else fails it's better to leave a story/chapter short than to add useless stuff that _you_ don't even like.

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**IV. Don't Start Something You Can't Finnish**

There are three simple rules that one must follow when beginning to write a long chaptered story and they are as follows: have an ending in mind, HAVE AN ENDING IN MIND, **HAVE AN ENDING IN MIND.**

Do not start a story without having at least an idea of where you're going to take it. You don't need to have every little detail of your story planned out and the things you do plan out don't have to be set in stone, but it's important to have direction in your writing. You wouldn't be surprised to see the amount of stories on this site that get started, but never get finished (yes, I said wouldn't). Please, don't be one of them. Unless you truly loose interest and find yourself hating each moment spent writing a story, you should finish it. While I think it's important to finish what you start, it's more important that you have fun doing it.

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**V. And About Those Endings…**

Endings are tough. Really tough. You'll find yourself looking back at all you've written and having no idea how to bring it all back together into one nice little box. But the problem with this is that often when it comes to endings it's better to think outside of that box.

The reader expects you to resolve every little issue that occurs throughout the story. But when things fit together perfectly they never seem real. So don't solve every problem that you brought up in a story. Some things are better left for the mind to ponder. Still, you're walking a fine line. You should wrap up the story to some degree. Otherwise it will feel incomplete and your readers will be as disappointed as a kid who's balloon got popped at the fair (not a good simile… but it's 12:40 AM… give me a break).

But when push comes to shove, it's your decision that matters. Don't let your readers bully you into supplying the catch-all "happy ending". If you want your story to end tragically, then end it tragically. Ultimately, the story should feel right to you. If your readers like it, then great. If they don't like it, then you can tell them where to go! (Meaning you should tell them to read my stories because my endings rein supreme!)


End file.
